Chapter 714: Runes.
Surprisingly, Victor’s lessons for Valeria didn’t take long. It seemed that the ‘contract’ and the Energy used did much more than just empower her body and ensure eternal youth.
The High Priestess soaked up Victor’s teachings like a sponge, she became even more capable, and that detail put a satisfied smile on Victor’s face.
Valeria herself was surprised by this too. Things now seemed much clearer to her, it was as if a limitation imposed by the world had been removed, and she could do much more than before.
‘Is this what it means to overcome your Humanity?’ She couldn’t help biting her lips in ecstasy; it was a very intoxicating feeling.
Finished with his business, Victor left this place for his Wives to take over. He’d already done more than necessary, and it was time to enjoy his vacation.
…
Yes… He was supposed to enjoy his vacation, but the moment he set foot in Nightingale, he was told that Scathach wanted to see him. Thinking it would be a quick thing, he went to visit Scathach, but…
‘Why am I sitting here?’ he wondered.
Victor, Siena, Lacus, Pepper, and Ruby were sitting on the floor next to each other while Scathach stood before them.
“Hi, Kids. Today, I will be teaching you about Runes.”
“…”
Victor’s smile trembled a little, then he raised his hand as if he were at school:
“Master, I already learned about Runes.”
“Quiet, stupid disciple. What you learned in Hell cannot be described as Runes but Demonic Scriptures, two completely different things.”
“Shishou, I’m sure I learned about Runes,” Victor spoke confidently.
“Oh? Write a word with Runes then, and stop changing the language when calling me ‘Master’.”
“Okay, Magister.” He spoke in perfect Latin.
Scathach’s eyes glinted dangerously.
“….” Siena, Lacus, Pepper, and Ruby flinched before their mother’s gaze. Despite being more ‘familiar’ with each other, after all, they shared the same man and had a closer relationship than before, they still felt pressured by Scathach.
Lacus’ and Pepper’s cheeks reddened when they thought about that ‘perverted’ detail.
‘Oyakodon and Shimadon…’ Pepper blushed furiously, her perverted mind going places it shouldn’t right now.
Victor raised his hand in the air, and with his fingers, he wrote four red ‘Runes’ in the air.
Scathach waited for the Rune to be activated, but nothing happened: “… So?”
“That’s just it.” Victor declared, then added, “These Runes have more effect when I use my Authority as a Demon King.”
“… Haah… As I said, Disciple. That’s not a Rune.”
“…” Victor raised his eyebrow.
“What you have done now is Demonic Scripture.” Scathach created an Ice wand and wrote something in the air. Soon, four ‘scriptures’ appeared written in the air.
“That…”
“It’s Divine Scripture, the same thing as Demonic Scripture, but they’re mostly used for the Gods.”
“The Demons and the Gods have their own way of writing and communicating, and that language has Power. You’ve heard the saying: Words have Power?”
“Yes.”
“What’s happening here is an example of that. Since you are a Demon King, the Highest Authority of Hell, you can use these Ancient Languages to write Laws and Demonic Contracts, but these are not Runes.”
“Runes are the act of writing your intentions into reality, and for that, we use languages that have Power like Demonic or Divine Scriptures.”
“… Wait, in a way, Victor has already learned about Runes, but only the ‘language’ in which this Power works,” Ruby spoke.
“Correct.”
“Through the Authority of the Demon King, he is unintentionally using a special type of Rune, the Portals of Hell, and the Demon Contract he made with Valeria is just that.”
“He used the Ancient Language, and his Authority as a Demon King made the whole process happen.”
“Ugh… Can anyone sum this up in 20 words? I do not understand anything.” Pepper grumbled.
“Mm.” Lacus nodded in agreement with Pepper.
“Think of it this way. For a ‘Runes’ effect to occur, we need to utilize an Ancient Language, intent, and Power to shape the ‘Rune’ into reality. However, because I have the Authority of the Demon King, I am skipping the entire process and going straight to the result.”
“With that Authority, I can’t make other Rune effects like the storage bag created by the Alioth Clan or the changes Scathach made to our armor and weapons.”
“…Oh.” Lacus made a face that understood what Victor said.
“That wasn’t 20 words, Darling.” Pepper snorted.
Victor chuckled and patted Pepper’s head.
“Hehehe~.”
“What Clan Alioth does is an even more advanced and complex level of Runes because they are using their special Power for that. Alexios and Natalia are likely the only ones in the whole world who can make Runes that special.”
‘Even the Gods would have a hard time doing what they can do because this is something that mixes the Concepts of Space, Time, and Runes.’
“Stop molesting my daughter, and concentrate on your homework.” Scathach narrowed his eyes.
“How rude to call it molesting; I’m merely stroking her head.”
“Vic, do me too…” Lacus spoke with the voice of a mosquito.
“Sure.” Victor started stroking Lacus’s head as well.
“Mm~.”
Siena and Ruby’s eyes glowed slightly blood red when they saw Lacus and Pepper’s happy faces.
Scathach facepalmed. She was wondering if she’d lost the knack of teaching her disciples. ‘Am I getting softer?… That can’t happen, right?’ Her eyes glittered dangerously.
And the four sisters felt a foreboding feeling come over them.
“Pay attention now, or I will increase the training—”
“Oh?” Victor smiled interestedly.
“Not for you, Victor! For my daughters.”
“Tsk, stingy.”
The four girls shuddered and quickly turned their attention to their mother.
After all, unlike Victor, who would be only too happy to spar with an angry Scathach, they weren’t like that! The only one who could handle this female ‘dragon’ was Victor!
“Back to the point… Runes essentially impose your Will on the world through various methods, the most common of which is the three-way method, utilizing the three main essences of building a Rune: Ancient Languages, Energy, and Intent.”
“Watch.” With the Ice wand in hand, she drew three different writings in the air, a golden script, a red script, and a blank script.
“Can anyone tell me what these Scriptures are?”
“The letter patterns are the same as what you and Victor showed us before, so the red writing is Demonic Scripture, the gold writing is Divine Scripture, and the last one appears to be Norse,” Ruby replied.
Scathach nodded, satisfied, indicating she was correct, and asked curiously, “Do you know about Old Norse?”
“I don’t.”
“How did you identify the words then?”
“I saw it in a comic.”
“…” Scathach and Siena were speechless.
Victor just chuckled gently at Ruby’s brutal honesty.
“Oh, now that you mention it, it looks like the designs shown in the Thor comics.” Pepper narrowed her eyes: “It’s pretty similar to the enchantment Odin put on Mjolnir.”
“Speaking of Mjolnir, do you think Victor would be worthy of wielding it?” Lacus asked.
“Probably.” Pepper spoke.
“But he doesn’t seem worthy enough.” Ruby pointed.
“I mean, he might well be able to seduce the perverted hammer, and she’ll do whatever he wants like a good little bitch.”
“….” Victor stared at Pepper with a speechless expression.
“I don’t understand where this conversation is going, but I must ask, why do you think Thor’s hammer is a girl?” Siena asked, confused.
“I mean, anything Victor comes into meaningful contact with ends up being a girl. I would be more shocked if it were a man.”
“Hmmhmm.” Ruby and Lacus nodded several times in agreement with Pepper.
“… Okay… You’ve been watching and consuming too much Anime lately. How about a break?”
“I refuse!” Lacus, Pepper, and Ruby spoke at the same time with hardened expressions and deep voices.
“…” Victor stared blankly at the three girls, then looked at Siena and touched her shoulder.
“You are the most normal of them all.”
“… Huh?”
“It’s okay, I understand.” He pulled Siena into a hug and patted her head.
“What do you understand- Ehhh?” Siena’s face turned slightly red when she breathed in Victor’s scent, which only lasted a few seconds. Then she took a deep breath and shamelessly rubbed her head on his chest.
‘Degenerate pervert.’ Pepper, Lacus, and Ruby snorted.
“…” Scathach just watched it all with veins bulging on her head.
“Attention” She stomped on the ground, and killing intent exploded from her body.
“Y-Yes!” Like four startled rabbits, the girls practically jumped in fright and quickly straightened their postures and looked at Scathach with the expression of a soldier awaiting orders.
Victor just looked at Scathach with a sunny smile that made Scathach’s brow twitch.
“What?”
“Nothing, I just find that side of you quite attractive.”
Scathach’s killing intent noticeably lightened, a hint of a smile appeared on her lips, and a slight imperceptible blush appeared on her cheek.
“Stop with the sweet words. They won’t sway me! Now focus!”
“Yes~.”
“…” Pepper, Lacus, and Ruby had to fight back the urge to roll their eyes. They wanted to know how their mother had become such a Tsundere.
“Back to the explanation, although they are written in different languages, each character here means only one thing; fire.”
“Watch and learn.” Scathach gestured with her hand, and the three characters started to glow. In the next moment, the scriptures seemed to become more ‘real’.
Watching all this with his ‘Dragon Eyes’, Victor widened his eyes in surprise at what he witnessed. In a somewhat barbaric way, Scathach was imposing her will on reality.
‘This is interesting…’
Right after that, fire started shooting from each scripture. The Demonic Scripture was the first to be activated; a massive ball of fire shot out of the Demon Scripture and flew towards the sky.
Then the Divine Scripture sent out an even greater fire than before.
When the Norse Scripture was activated, the fire that came out was a regular fireball.
“By using my Energy and imposing my intent on the language, that language becomes Runes.”
“Now, tell me which was the strongest?”
“The Divine Scripture.” The five responded in unison. However, only Victor added:
“But the Divine Scripture consumed much more Energy than necessary. The same applies to the Demonic Scripture. The Norse Scripture seemed to be more stable.”
“….” Scathach looked at Victor, specifically his Dragon Eyes.
“Correct. Do you know why the Demonic and Divine Runes took so much Energy from me?”
“Is it because you are not the same ‘Race’ as those Ancient Bloodlines?”
“… Explain why you think that.”
“Intuition. When you used the Runes, I noticed an incongruity in how your Energy behaved.”
“… And you are correct,” Scathach said.
“… Those eyes are a cheat.” Siena rolled her eyes.
Nobody commented on those words because they were feeling the same way.
“Leaving my husband’s cheat-like existence aside-.”
“Oyy!”
“Mother, please continue,” Ruby spoke.
“Haah… As you can see, the more Ancient and significant the language, the more power the Runes will have, but don’t think that just because you are using an Ancient Language, the effect of the Rune will activate without consequences. The origin of the language is something that must be taken into account.”
“As Victor pointed out, the Divine and Demonic Scriptures took a huge amount of stamina and Energy out of me, and I just made a simple Rune with them. Imagine how much Energy I would need to make something like this.” Scathach raised her Spear toward the group, and soon hundreds of tiny Runes began to glow all over the Spear.
“As a Mortal, I always recommend using Mortal Tongues. Because of this, in my Runic workings, I usually use Akkadian, a dead language, or Old Norse.”
“Master, how exactly do you set the intent in the scripture to become a Rune?” Victor asked.
“… This is something I’m curious about, too. I didn’t understand that part.” Siena commented.
“Hmm… How to explain this…” Scathach touched the frown on her face. She seemed to be thinking deeply, and soon she replied:
“You need to listen to existence and talk to it.”
“…”
“Don’t look at me like that. I can only think of explaining it that way because that’s literally what I do.”
“… Do you converse with ‘existence’?” Siena asked, confused.
“Hmm, the more correct saying is that I give an order that generates a trigger for a specific phenomenon, and it appears in reality.”
“… This is confusing…” Pepper mumbled.
“Indeed.” Ruby nodded.
“Master, is it possible to use Runes in combat?” Victor asked, visibly excited.
“It’s impossible.” Scathach declared.
“…Why?”
“Working with Runes is a delicate process. Any loss of concentration when you are ‘imposing your Will on the world’ can lead to catastrophes for yourself.”
“And as you know, in a fight, every second counts.”
“Because of this, Runes are mostly used as support or pre-configured in an artifact like this Spear.”
“Wait, does that mean we can’t write several pre-installed ones to be activated with our Energy?” Ruby pointed.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, for example, I pick up a weapon, write Fire Runes, and then use my stamina to activate the Rune instantly.”
“…Oh, you’re talking about built-in enchantment.”
“Yes, it is possible to do that, but it is impossible to do it the way you said.”
“Why?”
“Runes are not something that lasts forever. Do you remember when I activated the fire earlier, the Runes disappeared?”
“Yes…”
“That’s what would happen to the item or the Rune itself if you abused the enchantment.”
“Oh.”
“Remember that Runes are something that imposes your Will on reality, and this causes wear and tear both physically on the Rune itself and for the material on which the Rune was written.”
“…”
“… If we had stronger material, could we do that?”
“Yeah, that’s what I did with my Spear, but Victor… Writing Runes on material is extremely time-consuming because mistakes are not allowed. It took me years to finish this Spear of mine.”
“I had to carve each Rune with extreme care. Any mistake and I would have lost precious material and possibly killed myself.”
“…” Everyone broke out in a cold sweat. Runes were something perilous, they thought.
“Not to mention that using a Rune-sculpted weapon like a flamethrower is extremely inefficient.”
“Why?” Lacus asked
“The fire that came out of the Rune might be relatively strong, but it’s just normal fire, and stronger Beings would barely feel those attacks.”
“Oh.” The girls understood now.
“So it’s more efficient to use the Runes as a passive support force, like putting various Spells to increase strength, senses, etc.”
“Of course, remember not to overdo the enchantments. You don’t want to die, right?”
“….”
“Oh, one of the consequences of getting a Rune Enchantment wrong can be fading out of existence, so be very careful when doing long enchantments, and make sure you are 100% focused.” She spoke with a gentle smile that made everyone shiver.
“… Mother, we haven’t even learned how to write Runes yet! Why are you saying this?” Siena asked.
“It is for you to remember. This is also a warning to Victor.”
“Eh?”
“Toying with Runes without an experienced teacher around is extremely dangerous and will endanger not only yourself but also the people around you.”
“I will teach you the way of the Runes. Who wants to learn?”
All, without exception, raised their hands.
“Good.”
“I guess I should take a turn after Scathach’s lesson is over,” Victor spoke next.
The girls looked at Victor with raised eyebrows.
“What? Are you going to teach Victor?”
“Something like that.” Victor got up from the ground and walked a little distance. As he walked, his arm started to be covered by the Water, and with a wave of his hand, a significant cut appeared on the ground. The hole was deep! And there wasn’t even any kind of explosion, just cutting like a blade.
“…”
“High-pressure water can even cut diamonds. I learned a way to imitate this high pressure.”
“…”
“I will teach this too.” Victor pointed his finger at a tree; then, an Ice sphere appeared on his finger. This Ice sphere began to rotate at high speed.
“Bang.” The ice sphere flew towards the tree, but instead of penetrating the tree, it simply exploded and covered the entire tree with Ice, and in the next moment, the Ice shattered, shattering the tree into thousands of pieces.
“Holy fuck… He didn’t control the Ice, right? He just shot it, and that happened.” Siena spoke.
“Yes… The entire process after firing the sphere had been automated.” Scathach commented in visible disbelief.
‘Has he already reached this level with Ice control?’
“To Lacus, I will teach this.” Victor’s body transformed into thousands of bats, and the next moment he ‘reappeared’ on the other side of the training area.
“I-I-Itachi’s skill!” Pepper stood up with her eyes shining.
Victor repeated the same thing he had done before and appeared in front of the group.
“That is so cool!!” Pepper jumped, making her mountains rise and sway back and forth, up and down.
“Teach me! Teach me! Teach me!”
Victor smiled gently: “Calm down, Pepper, I’ll teach you too.”
“Yay!”
Ruby walked silently closer to Victor and held his clothes.
“…” Victor looked at Ruby, and even though her expression was neutral, her eager eyes couldn’t be hidden.
“Of course, I’ll teach you too, Ruby.”
“Mm.”
Victor laughed. It was adorable how clumsy she was at these things.
Victor felt his clothes being tugged at again and saw Lacus and Siena’s faces.
“I’ll teach you too, but remember, Girls, this is very difficult to do. First, you need to master changing your body shape completely.”
“So I suggest focusing on your strengths first.”
“… If it’s so hard to do, why did you train it?”
“I spent 700 years in an enclosed space training. When I ran out of ideas on what to train, I would go back to basics and learn to control my Racial Abilities better, and that opened up other avenues for me that allowed me to increase my strength.”
Seeing Victor talking to her daughters, Scathach’s face tightened.
‘They completely forgot my lesson.’ She sighed, and her gaze became kinder. The image of all her daughters talking harmoniously gave her a sense of peace. ‘This isn’t bad… I actually like it a lot.’
“Scathach?”
“Hmm?”
“Are we going to go back to learning about Runes?” Victor smiled gently.
She laughed lightly, “Of course.”
…..
Edited By: DaV0 2138, IsUnavailable
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